The last symphony orchestra is known all over the world as the Voice of the Turtledove since they travel in a spectacular white jet named the "Turtledove." The Old Blind Storyteller is telling us of the orchestra's loss in the Arctic Ocean -- when his assassination before our eyes stops his story short. A violinist appears from inside the slumped body; and the story continues accompanied by a Bach Partita, but the Storyteller's old face transforms into than of a baby.

So begins a creation story of Western Civilization told with mating turtles and the author's home movies of his first communion. Adam and Eve give birth to the Chorus of Civilization and all stand to recite Gary Snyder's pledge from "No Nature: New and selected poems" [Pantheon, 1992] -- "I pledge allegiance to the soil/ of Turtle Island,/ and to the beings who thereon dwell/ one ecosystem/ in diversity/ under the sun/ With joyful interpenetration for all."

"I am Lt. Colonel Knee, someone you can not see.
Me and my feet maintain order and metaphor security."

Napoleon, age 16, loses his virginity to a Parisian prostitute, causing the young officer to question the value of continued life; and a majestic sea turtle is found dead, washed up on a Puget Sound beach -- the site of the first white settlers in the Northwest.